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And just like that, 1 in every seven kids in the world got royally fucked.
Right?
Let's see, Pythagorean theorem, is what, a couple thousand years old, and a single statement, right? And it's the foundation of geometry and trig. Hell, I regularly say it in my head (a2+b2=c2) when trying to figure out spatial relationships, for dumb stuff no less (will this table fit on my patio with room to walk around it?).
It's how you ensure anything you're trying to make square is square. In framing (shed, house, deck, whatever) it's used to ensure you setup your string in the proper orientation and don't end up with a parallelogram.
And the Periodic table.... The bloody basis of understanding chemical reactions and physics.
I guess if you're not teaching the Periodic Table, there'd be no hope if understanding evolutionary theory, since it's predicated on chemical behaviour.
Seriously… the Pythagorean Theorem is the single most important piece of practical math that can be easily taught to everyone.
And I just recently used it to measure the length of christmas lights I need for my roof, being 15 years out of school.
I'm a software engineer and I think one of my personal favorite random applications of Pythagoras/ trig was in my data visualization class back in scool. The assignment was to take a dataset of Soviet space launches with dogs and display it in an interactive approachable manner (ie less rigorous data science and more local science center), so I thought it would be fun to show rockets for each lauch and animate them rotating around the earth. Queue the trig to place each icon an appropriate distance (scaled to the launch height in my data), angle, and spacing from the earth.
I'll admit it doesn't come up all that often (in web development), but it's nice to have that foundational knowledge to dredge up when I need it.
The first uses of the hypotenuse theorem came centuries before Pythagoras, unknown exactly when it came to be. Pythagoras just happens to be credited to be the first to document it.
http://5010.mathed.usu.edu/Fall2021/BDzierzon/history.html
Edit: Noting that the http site doesn't seem to load in Android WebView mode, fuck Google Chrome, it loads in Firefox though.
The Pythagorean theorem is no foundation of anything. It is just one solution to one problem that nobody else had solved before.
Archimedes has built the foundations that you are talking about.
That is taught in lower grades. The article is misleading. What is actually dropped is a specific advanced topic on the Pythagorean theorem.
Just for clarification, so less people use it wrong:
a² + b² = c² (a*a + b*b = c*c) is the Pythagorean Theorem.
a2 + b2 = c2 would be a+a + b+b = c+c.
Well it says mandatory, hopefully it still stays in most schools. Absolutely fucked tho
PEOPLE FALLING FOR THIS SHIT AGAIN IS INSANE !
They haven't removed the Pythagorean theorem, it seems to be taught in lower grades. This is Pythagorean theorem for the similarity of triangles, which was dropped to remove burden during pandemic.
Periodic tables and evolution are moved to one or two grade higher. NOT DROPPED.
There you go. Now you have the facts. Enjoy the rest of your day 🫡
These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.
I know nothing of India's education system. Does this mean it's in an optional class now or is this totally wrong?
What the hell are you talking about!? It says in the article that these three subjects have been moved out of mandatory learning.
Meaning that most Indian students won't understand the basic principles of evolution or the most simple understanding of the composition of elements.
Not considering either of these three to be essential mandatory learning is insane.
It says in the post that 10th grade is the last mandatory grade, so this means many students will miss out on learning about evolution, no?
that's just your hypotenuse
Also 'cuz I'd like to see how they could progress in the curricula without Pythagoras and the periodic table.
Thanks for that. I hate people who leave out important information and context. They are evil.
Except this comment seems to leave out that mandatory science education stops in India at 10th grade, so the periodic table and evolution will not be taught to Indian students unless they pursue higher grades of education.
What the actual fuck? Those are all taught way before 10th grade here in the US, even in my-ass backwards state.
I feel like they worded it poorly or misinterpret it from the source. Post-soviet edu has all three at 5th grade (age 10-12), the beginning of the middle school, because only then you can start and learn respective fields for remaining 5-7 years. If you place them in the last year of school it you don't have a room for that at all.
I suppose it should've meant 'in their whole 10-year program', not the tenth grade.
We learned Pythagorean theorem in 7th grade when I was a kid 30 years ago. I think they learn it even earlier now.
Yes they are in India too. This article is misleading. It is about a specific advanced concept using the Pythagorean theorem.
Ok don’t make it mandatory but then what would you be teaching instead? These are all like the basic building blocks of chemistry and geometry. You just aren’t gonna teach kids those subjects then?
I think there's an argument to be made for letting students specialize a bit earlier than college freshman or sophomore 18-20 years old). I think a basic foundation of subjects is something everyone should have, but an entire year of something like chem or physics or bio? That's about as useless for humanities people as an entire year of reading plays would be for science types.
Maybe a semester on each one is sufficient, and then after 10th grade (16-18 YO) you can choose to focus more on humanities vs STEM. You can still leave something similar to the current curriculum in place for the undecided students. And of course you can still have some crossover with electives.
All of these topics are : How the Universe Works 101
..and they apply to literally any and every field of study..
General knowledge like this is ducking priceless when it comes to understanding.. so. ducking. much.
That aside, I also think your specialization comment is stupid. Did you happen to graduate from a school in India in the past 16 months?
I'm a humanities major. I've used pythagorean theorem in my life but never the periodic table. However, the table (and Pythagoras) would still be included under 1 semester of chem.
Plus the UK lets students specialize earlier than the US does, so fuck them I guess?
99% of authors or commentators or journos writing about climate change need a 1-tonne solid carbon periodic table smashed over their head.
Everyone in UK would be taught pythagoras, periodic table, evolution at secondary school. Some learning disabled or who DGAF might skip over it or won't actually learn it; but it'd be at taught in basic terms on the general syllabus for most people before age 16. Certainly anyone specialising in science / maths at 16-18 would be expected to know this stuff at a reasonable level from secondary school.
Having had to choose only 3 subjects at age 16, it's very limiting for young people who don't really know what they are doing. You drop one thing and it rules out a whole swathe of things you might never have known would be useful. I sort of wish i'd been forced to do chemistry longer, I dropped it because it was boring and I was allowed to choose stupid shit that proved FAR more useless (Economics).
I'd have probably ended up doing something more interesting and maybe even useful with my life - though maybe the grass is always greener.
“101”? Sounds like an American educational system perspective.
Maybe if you spent more time learning some civics and less focusing on making IT working STEM lords you wouldn’t have voted in Trump.
This is not priceless general knowledge, it’s hyper niche knowledge that doesn’t apply to the majority of adults lives. Anyone in my country who wanted to pursue these topics would have picked “advanced” versions of the units during year 9/10.
Goddamn fascists man.
Seems like you have not TIL’d fully.
Setting aside that it was temporary (though I could agree there is some malice on the committee’s part in this respect), the topics in discussion were already introduced in lower grades and the complex aspects were moved to higher grades.
But the most important part that never ever got discussed since the story broke, is that the change did got implemented because the committee listened to the feedback and dropped the plan merely a week later. [0]
The government and education ministry have some glaring flaws, but this is not one of them. They continue to make questionable decisions that deserve attention and criticism; yet these issues rarely receive the focus that this story has generated.
Please stop with the FUD, even if it is due to your lack of knowledge on the matter.
[0] http://toi.in/WFlcAb44 (apologies for linking this abomination in the name of a news website, but they were the ones to break the news and get the interviews.)
E: missed a word.
India is super conservative. A lot of Trump’s biggest supporters are Indian in the US.
Things no one asked for and these are the stuff students in India study with the greatest interest. They could remove the mundane boring topics but no.
Modi's ahead of Trump on many many things. Mulsims are not yet lynched by mobs in the US
Keep 'em ~~dump~~ dumb, easy to control.
But then they'll never learn to proofread their comments.
lol, thanks, corrected it.
Those darn triangles!
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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